Our siblings are a huge part of our selves. What happens when one of them passes away? Three people share their experience

Memories Lost

Rebecca

We were five sibs; Akiva was the oldest. The two of us were just 21 months apart, so pretty much all of our childhood experiences were identical, but we were very different in temperament. While he was a wild and lively kid, I was much calmer.

Our grandmother would babysit us, and she had her hands full with him. I was her princess — she called me “the sophisticated one,” because I would follow rules and always do what I was told. I think I made him look bad.

As the two oldest, we took shared responsibility for making sure things went smoothly at home for our younger siblings. Our parents were married, but their relationship was rocky; the responsibility for the younger kids’ emotional well-being fell on our shoulders, and we became the other “grown-ups” in the house, the problem-solvers who needed to deal with the issues. If we wanted Shabbos to be pleasant, it was up to me and Akiva to keep the peace.

When Akiva hit his teens, he became much more closed. I think he was going through a lot of inner stuff, trying to figure himself out — so I certainly couldn’t figure him out. He’d spend a lot of time shut in his room, which put a bit of distance between us.

Akiva went to learn in Eretz Yisrael two years ahead of me. I realized from the little that we spoke over those years that there was a big religious gap developing between us. We’d grown up Modern Orthodox, but he was becoming way more yeshivish, changing his name from Adam to Akiva. It seemed as though he was slipping away from me. Steeped in my high school happenings, I couldn’t relate to his world — and I felt like he couldn’t really relate to mine anymore either.

There were many factors behind my going in the same religious direction as he, but I think a big part of it was that I always looked up to him, so if he was choosing this path, I felt like there must be a lot to it. I went to seminary with a mindset of “I want to explore this too.” I wanted to enter his world and maybe come a little closer to him through that.

And that’s exactly what happened. During my time in Israel and from that point on, we had something very special. In later years, whenever he was going through a rough time in his personal life or at work, I was the one he confided in most. Akiva suffered from kidney stones and underwent various procedures. Being a big, strong guy, he put on a good face, but he told me how awful it was. And that was how things were for many years — though we lived far apart, we stayed close.

My family grew and grew, but Akiva remained unmarried. In my eyes, his life seemed pretty lonely, and I would often invite him to fly across the country to be with us for family vacations and Yamim Tovim.

Akiva’s death was a total shock. Although he’d been sick for a long time with chronic illnesses, we didn’t realize they were fatal.